The Libyan and Nubian peoples constituted two of the four races of man according to the Egyptian world view, along with the Asiatics and the Egyptians themselves (Leahy 2000: 226).The history of Egypt in the first millennium bc is dominated by the influence of successive groups of foreigners. There is a distinction to be made from the later groups, including the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, all of whom, in one way or another, were recognized as being ‘‘foreign’’ by the native Egyptian population, while the earlier groups, the Libyans and Nubians, seem, most of the time, to have been treated as Egyptians, even if elements of their ethnic origins remained evident (Jansen-Winkeln 2000: 1-2).
Sources record three major episodes of conflict with Libyan contingents during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. In each case the Egyptians appear to have emerged triumphant, but it is very unlikely that any defeats the Egyptians may have suffered were recorded. Lists of the spoils of their various triumphs against the Libyans suggest that the invaders brought cattle and other animals with them in large numbers, at least in year five of Merneptah and year eleven of Ramesses III (O’Connor 1990: 37), and the texts of Merneptah indicate that women and children had accompanied the expedition (Leahy 2001: 292), all of which suggests that the Libyans’ intention was to settle in Egypt, and the records of the battle of Ramesses III’s eleventh year state explicitly that the northern invaders wished to ‘‘dwell in Egypt’’ and spend their lifetime there (O’Connor 1990: 108). It may safely be assumed that a large number of Libyans penetrated Egypt’s borders in smaller groups without facing much resistance (Leahy 1985: 53).
The identification of individual Libyans and detection of Libyan influence in Egypt is one of the principal difficulties faced by scholars of the period. Few individuals with Libyan names appear in the evidence prior to the Twenty-second Dynasty, and superficially little had changed: iconography, worship of traditional gods, language, script, and other cultural elements remained thoroughly Egyptian. Nonetheless, the evidence suggests that certain things had changed, and this change can be explained by the influence of Libyan peoples. The installation of family members to important religious, administrative, and military positions was a feature of Libyan influence in Egypt and reflects the importance of kinship to those in power. This emphasis on lineage is characteristic of the oral tradition of non-literate societies such as that of the Libyan settlers (Leahy 1985: 55) and is also manifest in the appearance during this period of long genealogies in inscriptions. These record patrilineal (i. e. father-to-son) relationships often stretching back through several generations, giving both the names of the individuals concerned and their titles, although the latter are commonly indicated only by the phrase mi nn (‘‘the like-titled’’) indicating that an individual had the same titles as his predecessor, itself a reflection of the degree to which offices had become hereditary (Taylor 2000: 341-2). During the New Kingdom royal family members had been prevented from assuming positions of influence (Taylor 2000: 241) so as to minimize the risk of nurturing rival claimants to power. By contrast, during the early years of the Twenty-second Dynasty the major positions at Thebes and important Middle Egyptian centers such as Herakleopolis had come to be dominated by members of the royal family. As these positions were allowed to become hereditary the potential was created for individuals to establish themselves as independent rulers in their respective localities.
The influence ofLibyans also contributed to the north-south divide apparent during the period. The division may, even at the end of the New Kingdom, have reflected the non-Egyptian dimension in the population, substantial communities of Libyans having settled in the Delta, in particular, while the areas further south remained predominantly Egyptian. This divide is manifest in a divergence in the style of certain object types such as coffins but perhaps most clearly in the divergence of scripts used for administrative documents at this time, the cursive, Hieratic of the New Kingdom having developed into Demotic in the north and ‘‘Abnormal Hieratic’’ in the south.
World History
